A vacation of epic proportions

There once was a young man named Chris
Who went on a trip just like this:
First to Florence and next
To Livorno, but vexed
He and Jon realized that Livorno is retarded and so are all the people that live there who have no idea when or from whence the ferry to Capraia leaves their unbearably hot and smelly town.

Yes, my dear friends and family, Livorno is hella-dumb. Online, the ferry ticket office told me that there were five ferries leaving for Capraia on Sunday. When Jon and I arrived there, however, there was no ferry in port, the ticket office was closed, and no one around the port seemed to know or even believe that ferries would actually go to Capraia. After some deciphering of the signs on the ticket office door, we discovered that a ferry would be leaving the next morning at 8:30. Unfortunately for Capraia, Jon and I really didn't feel like staying in Livorno for the night so we hopped a train (and by "hopped", I mean we paid for tickets and boarded legally) to Cinque Terre and figured we'd just bum around there until the girls (Amelia, Erin, and Emily; all from L'Abri) got there on Wednesday.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning of our trip. Interspersed throughout the post will be pictures from our trip. I'm going to make them small in the post, but just click on them and you can see a bigger version.

Jon and I walked out of Chalet Bellevue on Thursday morning at 10 with our backpacks strapped tightly to our backs, ready to hitchhike to Turin, Italy. We had a sign that Greg Laughery made for us in French that said "We are going to Turin, Italy. How far can you take us?" Hitching down to Turin turned out to be pretty easy. We made it in just about five hours. Our hitches were as follows:
1) A former missionary nurse from Albania took us down the mountain and wished us luck.
2) A British lady from Villars drove us to the next town, Monthey, and told us she knew a bunch of people from L'Abri and that anytime she picked up hitchhikers she knew they'd be from L'Abri. She was nice and had on three pounds of makeup.
3) These two old Swiss ladies who spoke absolutely no English picked us up and drove us about 40 minutes to the far side of Martigny. I told them that I didn't speak any French, but I guess I look like I can understand what anyone is saying because they talked and talked and talked to us all in French. I just smiled and nodded and Jon played Sudoku.
4) A middle-aged Swiss lady picked us up and drove us to the beginning of the highway that leads into Italy. She was very nice and told us that when she was little she memorized all 50 states of America. She also taught us how to count to 20 in French.
5) A Kosovar couple (if you'll notice, this is the first man that has picked us up; middle-aged women loved us) picked us up and drove us about 10 minutes up the road towards Italy.
6) Best hitch of the day. A French-turned-Swiss lady (middle-aged) picked us up and drove us all the way to within 50 km of Turin. We were in the car with her for about two hours during which she told us all about her travels around Europe and how she came to be a Zen Buddhist. She was incredibly nice and was a huge help for us.
7) We got dropped off by the Buddhist lady at a toll booth to get onto the main highway into Turin. Jon started making the sign for Turin (Torino). If you'll notice, he started out a little overambitious with the size of the letters and had to squeeze the 'I' 'N' and 'O' in at the very end. After he got the sign done, however, we quickly got picked up by a guy who was half Italian and half Scottish. He was an older guy who hitchhiked around Europe in the 70s and he took us straight into downtown Turin and dropped us off near a bus stop that we took to the train station.

We just barely made our train to Florence, but we did make it, and we saved about 40 euros by hitchhiking to Turin instead of taking a train straight from Huemoz.

Anyway, we made it to Florence and after waiting for a little while for the girls (Carla, Grace, Faith, and Andrea) we were on our way to their hotel. The plan was for all of us to sleep in the one room that Carla's dad had booked for two people. Of course, we had to be sure that the management didn't charge us extra for the extra people, so stealth was key. Unfortunately, they locked the doors to the hotel at 10 and we had to be buzzed in and the lady asked for Jon's and my ID (the girls had run upstairs as soon as we got through the door). So, since Jon and I couldn't stay at the hotel that night, we had to leave the room at about 12 am and search for another hotel to stay at. I've never tried to book a hotel room at 12 am, but I really didn't think it would be all that difficult. It was. It took us two hours and over twenty hotels to find one that had a double that was vacant. When we finally found a hotel, we went in and crashed hardcore.

The next day (I promise my descriptions are going to get much shorter; this post won't be book-length) we all met up at the Accademia Gallery and saw the David by Michaelangelo. I've seen it before, but it's such an amazing sculpture that I'd love to see it again and again. We saw the David (You aren't supposed to get pictures with the David, but I'm a rebel so booyah) and then went out to lunch near the Uffizi. Although we were supposed to go to the Uffizi at two that afternoon, all of us except for Carla and Grace were too worn out to go to another gallery so Andrea, Jon, and I walked up a hill on the other side of the river just to see what we could find. What we found was a free art exhibition that was jam-packed with people. They were only letting in about 20 people at a time so there was a mad rush every time they would open the doors to let people in. The picture of us in the crowd is the three of us waiting to get inside and an Italian man who was very frustrated to be stuck next to the Americans. The exhibit wasn't actually that good. Just some lame impressionist paintings. Andrea and I went up the hill further and found a big church with a view over the city so we sat up there for awhile and then met up with everyone else back down in the city. We bought dinner from a grocery store and ate in the hotel room (we got into Carla's room) that night.

On Saturday, Grace, Carla, Jon and I went back up that hill and sat up at the church and chilled for a couple of hours and then we all split up and had some alone time. I ended up sitting on a bench next to an old old old Italian couple who were flirting the entire time. It was kind of cute. Kind of uncomfortable. I just listened to my iPod and pretended that, in addition to not being able to understand their language, I also could not understand any of their actions or body language. They eventually left and Andrea found me and told me that she had found a garden party that we should go to because there was a disco band and free wine. We went and we witnessed the greatest dancing that I've ever seen by an Italian man over the age of 60. I videoed it, and it's on YouTube. I'll embed the video in a post after this one. It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Anyways, that night we ate out and then chilled in the hotel room again. Here's a picture of the sleeping arrangement in the room. Three people on the beds. Three people on the floor. It was tight.

Sunday came, and Jon and I headed to Livorno where, if you'll remember the limerick above, we found out that no ferries exist on Sundays. So we went to Cinque Terre early.

I'm glad that we made that decision. Cinque Terre is maybe one of the most relaxing and beautiful places I've ever been. If you don't know what it is, let me explain. Cinque Terre is a series of five little fishing and wine villages on the coast of Italy that are set in a national park and are connected by a little train. Jon and I stayed in Monterosso which is the most touristy of the towns but also the only one with sand beaches. Since it's October, though, there were hardly any tourists there and the beaches were pretty empty every day we were there. The picture of the village is Vernazza which is the next town over from Monterosso, but all the villages look pretty much like that one.

So, Monday Jon and I went on a hike up and around all five of the villages and then went back to Monerosso and chilled for the night. Tuesday = beach all day long. It was about 75 degrees Farenheit and sunny every day we were there. Wednesday we hit the beaches again and then met the girls at the train station. It turned out that Grace, Carla, and Carla's friend Spencer came to Cinque Terre that day as well as Erin, Amelia, and Emily so it turned into a little bit of a people overload. No sweat, though. Thursday we hiked another trail with the girls and then went swimming. And Friday we all went out to breakfast before Jon and I took a train to Locarno, Switzerland to meet Faith and do the bungee jump of a lifetime on Saturday.

Locarno. What to say about Locarno? It would be a great city if you took out all the jerk faces that live and work there. I guess it's usually a resort town for the rich Europeans so they really didn't like three dirty poor (North) Americans coming into their restaurants. Whatever. We came. We saw. We conquered in the name of (North) America.

Our hotel was nice. I didn't really care about anything in Locarno except for the bungee jump, and it more than met all of my expectations. I'm getting tired of typing things so I'll just refer you to the pictures and video below to see how the jump went.








Okay, so that was my break. I don't feel like typing anymore. I'll post again next Tuesday or maybe earlier. I hope your lives are great.